


Palm Springs Poolside

by ljs



Category: Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Rockford Files
Genre: Crossover, Established Relationship, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-31
Updated: 2013-08-31
Packaged: 2017-12-25 05:16:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/949050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ljs/pseuds/ljs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Stateless82; in a world where Mary Richards came to LA after Minneapolis and fell in love with a private eye with a Firebird.</p><p> </p><p>  <i>This Palm Springs afternoon is making Mary uncomfortable.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Palm Springs Poolside

This Palm Springs afternoon is making Mary uncomfortable.

With the sun high on rocks and palms and prickly things, with the buildings all angles and glass, with the world smelling of dust and suntan oil and chlorine, she feels out of place. Even after years in California, she's still Minneapolis and green and rivers.

Not that there's no water here, of course. Unnatural blue ripples from the hotel pool catch the sun and send it spinning everywhere, over tile and palm fronds and prone, seemingly boneless bodies on loungers. She's the only one here, in fact, who's sitting up and looking around.

Maybe that's why she's uneasy. Maybe if she turned over and hid from the desert harshness – 

“Hey, sweetheart,” comes that much loved baritone drawl, “your session finish already?” She's suddenly glad to be sitting up, glad to be able to turn around and grin at her man.

Jim's wearing one of his usual shirts and a pair of slacks, his only concession to the locale his bare feet. No, his other concession is that he's carrying two of those fruity drinks with umbrellas, rather than a beer or a tumbler of bourbon.

“I got what I needed out of the convention,” she says, and takes one of the drinks. “You get what you needed from Barnabas?”

“Angel got here first,” he says.

“Oh that's bad,” she says with quick sympathy.

“It happens.” He shrugs. “Dennis will just have to be disappointed.” Then he looks at her. “You're starting to pink up, Mary.”

She glances down. Yes, she's probably gotten enough sun. Not enough water in the air here to protect her –

“Hold tight to that drink,” he says, and then with one hand drags her lounger into the nearby shade.

She laughs. She doesn't spill. She ignores the looks from the nearest baking bodies, because after all, what do they matter when she can look up and delight in his smile?

Of course it's not just the smile. There's the amused glint in those dark eyes, the gleam of heat on his skin, there's the cowboy ease as he pulls another lounger next to hers and then drops down into a lazy sprawl. (She once made the mistake of telling him she thought he moved like a cowboy. He laughed for weeks. She won't tell him again, but she won't stop thinking it.)

He takes her hand and then leans back. “If you're done with your television people, do you want to go home tonight?”

“We could. What do you want to do?”

His expression changes, deepens somehow, and she feels the warmth run along her spine and down. “Station's already paid for the room,” he begins.

“And there's no need to tell Dennis yet that your source has clammed up,” she finishes.

“You've read my mind.” He brings her hand to his lips, then turns it so that he's kissing her inner wrist. A murmur against her skin – “So what am I thinking now?”

“I couldn't say,” she says in her most midwestern-lady tone, and then leans over to kiss away his smile. His mouth is still wet from rum and fruit, but nothing can mask the sweet dark taste that's Jim Rockford. Her tongue goes deep before she pulls away. 

His smile's still there. “Why, Mary Richards,” he drawls, “you got plans for me?”

“Maybe.” She lets their joined hands drift down his chest, feels the vibration of his laughter, lets herself drop back down. “Guess you'll have to wait and see.”

“Guess I will,” he says, and relaxes more fully onto the lounger. But one of his legs drifts over onto her side. She slides her foot under his calf and rubs the sole of her foot against his ankle.

“Mmm,” he says. His eyes close.

She smiles. The sun's beginning to lower, shadows coming to soften desert harshness. A radio's playing somewhere nearby, something easy and Spanish. The pool ripples again, and the lapping of water against tile is easy too. She's with her Jim.

Forget Minneapolis. She couldn't feel more comfortable if she tried.


End file.
